Really impressive Doctors

I am even more impressed with Andrea's Dr's today than I have ever been. After telling us that if the babies do not come on their own by December 10th that we will schedule a C-Section for between Dec 10 and 17 we are now told that we have a confirmed date of December 19th at 10am. They really do seem to have trouble with a calendar. Today I called them at 10am to tell them that the medicine that Andrea started taking last Wednesday, you remember the one that they screwed up the prescription on, has done nothing and that there has been no improvement on the symptoms from the Cholestasis. I told them I was concerned that maybe we should consider doing a C-Section sooner or maybe they would want to up the meds or try something else. Do you know what their response was? Me either, no one ever called me back. The office is open until 4:30 and when I called at 4:20 they were already gone. It is now 7:30 and no one has called us back. It is probably a good thing that I will not be able to talk to anyone until Tuesday morning. Maybe the rage and fury that I am feeling now will subside and I will be able to get through my conversation with them tomorrow without using the words, incompetent, ass or die.

Black Friday

You may remember that this pregnancy has had a lot of holiday involvement. We planted the embryos on Easter. We found out that she was pregnant on my birthday which is also Earth Day. When we thought she was pregnant with only one baby the due date was New Years Eve and when the Dr. told us that we really wanted to shoot for keeping them in for at least 35 weeks we looked and 35 weeks to the day was Thanksgiving. That is why I picked yesterday as my guess for the due date. Now with that Thanksgiving has come and gone I am terrified that the holiday theme is still going and we will have to wait till Christmas. I am now grasping at straws and looked up all possible upcoming holidays. Maybe I will have some luck on Dec 7th, Pearl Harbor Day, or December 10th which is Human Rights Day, or December 12th which is the start of Hanukkah. Maybe that is the winner since the girls are 1/4 Jewish. If not then I have a shot on December 17th which is the Wright Brothers Day. December 18th is the Islamic New Year and December 21st is the first day of winter. I am still sure the big day will be on a holiday so these are all my guesses. If I have to wait for Easter I am going to kill and eat the stork when he finally does show up.

Dr. or just a good guesser?

Week 35 arrives on Thanksgiving. That is the point that the Dr's said was a pivotal point in the pregnancy. If we got to 35 weeks the odds were good that everything would be fine if they were born. As you may remember Andrea and I thought that she had a condition called cholestasis which jacks up the liver and can negatively effect the babies. The Dr. said that she did not think that she had it but we pushed her to check for it. She reluctantly did and the results came back today that she does have "cholestasis of pregnancy" This occurs in 1/1000 pregnancies so based on our recent luck we were sure that she had it. When we called them and told them we thought she had shingles they said that it was a skin yeast infection and my wife had to suffer longer than was necessary. We have been told by one Dr. that if she does not have the babys by December 10th that they would go and get them between the 10th and the 17th. Today she said that they would wait until between the 17th and the 24th. Then she wrote the prescription wrong to treat the cholestasis and I had to wait an hour for the pharmacist to clarify the order. I also asked the Dr. if we were able to use over the counter version of Prilosec. I asked because the prescription version cost me $55 last month and I bought the over the counter one tonight for $16. If it was fine tonight why were we not told this last month? Some one owes me $39. No real money saved though because the new medicine that she starts tonight has a copay of $60. So here is the question to the Dr's of the world. Do you make this crap up as you go? Do you really know what the hell you are doing. Oh, and by the way, Blue Cross Blue Shield, you suck!

Opa!

Andrea has been taking suggestions as to what helps in stimulating delivery. She has heard Italian food so Domenico's here we come. We were told sex, yea right, I guess they are never coming out and last night she was told dancing so she did Greek line dance at a baptism party that we were at. The picture is not that great but there she is with Maria, Sandy and Sylvia getting down. My only experience with a Greek party was from watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding and I found out last night it was not far from the real thing. We had a good time but it looks like the dancing thing was a bust. If you saw the movie you may remember that the father thought that Windex was the cure for all that ails you. I thought it would be funny to take a bottle of Windex with me last night to the party but Andrea would not let me. We have no plans on going to Domenico's today so maybe I will get lucky.

Never again

Sometimes you just do things because it is the right thing to do. Last night my sick, uncomfortable, very large wife asked me to take her to see a movie. Her choice was a movie called New Moon. It is the sequel to the movie Twilight which is a movie marketed towards and made for teenage girls. It was one of the most anticipated movies of the year and my wife wanted to go on opening night. As we got there the line was wrapping around the theater. The line was full of 15 yr old giggling girls so I was sure that I was in for an event. We waited in line for about 15 minutes and then proceeded into hell. I can not describe how bad the movie was. It was 2 hours 20 minutes of horrible chick flick. I considered leaving, napping and crying but stayed for my wife's sake. The constant talking and antics of a room full of teenage girls would normally drive me insane but I did not care since I had no interest in following the movie. She actually looked at me several times during the movie and apologized for putting me through this. About 1.5 hours into it I started thinking of things that I would rather be doing at that time. The short list was ball room dancing, donating blood at a phlebotomy training school, smashing my big toe with a hammer and a prostate exam by a Dr. with abnormally large hands. I think that even Reagan and Riley hated being put through it because they paid her back last night. She was up again alot overnight and had another puking session at about 2am. There are two more movies due out in the series. When they do premier I think I will let Andrea go with her friends and I will stay home to play pretty pretty princess with my girls. That has got to be the more manly option. Remember to e-mail me your birthday guesses at jtgregg247@yahoo.com. So far November 30th is in the lead.

Hit the wall

I think that Andrea has reached the point where her lifestyle will be changed from now on. She did too much yesterday and it showed. My mom and her went to lunch and to get their nails done yesterday and we went and met a friend of mine for dinner last night at Panera and stopped by her house as she had some presents for us. We then stopped by Andrea's mothers house for a few minutes to drop some things off. With all this rigorous activity Andrea was really in pain last night and did not get to sleep until about 4:30am. I had to rescue her from the couch once yesterday. She laid down and could not get back up. Bob, keep your phone on ya. If Andrea calls you while I am out come over with a tow rope and a winch. She may have to pee and got stuck in the couch. Keep your schedule open she has to go about every 45 minutes. She did have what she thinks was a "real" contraction at about 5pm last night but that was the only one. She was told the other day at the hospital that she had been having contractions during the fetal heart monitoring that she was not feeling yet. It looked like at least 2 of them during her 30 minutes that she was hooked up. As far as I know none since then but I am pretty sure she will be packing a bag today. I am not saying that delivery is imminent in any way but I think that contraction last night got her attention. She was not even sure what was going on and had me call Maria over to explain what she was feeling and to confirm. It is great to have 2 recent mothers on the street to call on. Maria and Sylvia are on question standby at all times and have been very helpful. Remember to email your birthday guesses to jtgregg247@yahoo.com and thanks Heather for all the great stuff.

A whole lotta babies

Today we did the ultrasound and there is a whole lotta babies in there. Reagan is estimated to weigh 5 lbs, 6 ozs and Riley 6 lbs, 9 ozs. That is one ounce shy of 12 lbs of baby girls. We are still on schedule for a December 10th due date according to the Dr. The girls have grown just shy of 1/2 pound each over the last 3 weeks. If that trend continues and we think it will if they make it to the due date they will be about 7 lbs and 8 lbs. That is enormous for twins. The average twin birth weight is 5 lbs 5 ozs and we have already blown past those numbers with 3 weeks to go. I started getting guesses as to when they will be born. If you have not sent in your guess please do so. The address is jtgregg247@yahoo.com . Check out the picture of Rileys face from todays ultrasound.

Due date guesses

We went to the Dr. yesterday because Andrea has been very itchy, especially at night. She has all the symptoms of something called Cholestasis. She had a blood test but the results are not back yet. It occurs in about 1/1000 pregnant women so based on our luck so far we are sure that she has it. You can read about it at http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancycomplications/cholestasispregnancy.html

She has not had a good nights sleep for about 4 days until last night. She started a new medicine that seemed to help. We go back to the Dr tomorrow for a fetal heart monitoring, ultrasound and a meeting with the docs. Hopefully they will have an answer for us. I am very excited to see how big the girls are from the ultrasound.

It is driving us insane not knowing when the girls are arriving. The due date is still December 10th but I really think they will run out of room before then. I am looking for some help in figuring it out so I thought that you all may assist me in a less than scientific way. E-mail me your guess as to when the girls will be born, date and time to jtgregg247@yahoo.com and I will keep track of all the responses. When the date comes I will figure out who is closest and you will win a prize. Not sure what yet but I will come up with something. Help a brother out and send me your guess with "Birthday" in the subject line.

Booby do

Did heart monitoring and Dr. visit today. Not too much new except that they gave us Andrea's chart to carry with us at all times in case she starts to pop. Could be any day or it may not be for another month. Andrea said she needed, not wanted, needed Fettuccine Alfredo at Domenico's tonight so we went there for dinner. They are one of my customers and I texted them that we were coming in. As the waitress was seating us she was insistent that Andrea sit in a specific seat. I found out why, Filippo had put out a nice cushy padded chair for my wife and nothing special for me. Throughout dinner I noticed people checking out Andrea's belly and specifically one table that was near us. As they were leaving they stopped by our table and commented that Andrea looked uncomfortable and wondered if she was having twins. I guess she is starting to show.

One month and counting

We went to Magee tonight to do the hospital tour. We saw the L&D rooms, patient rooms, where to go when you get there, etc. There was about 10 other preggos there and Andrea again had the biggest belly of them all. We did find out a few things we did not know like since we are having twins we will not be in a regular delivery room. They take us to the operating room even if they are born the old fashioned way. I think we will be doing a C Section though as I am pretty sure that both babies are still breach. They have been kicking the crap out of their mother. Riley is constantly up under her rib and Reagan is usually kicking her in the bladder making for many trips to the bathroom overnight. Tomorrow we have a fetal heart monitoring session and a Dr appointment, no ultrasound until next week. As of today we are exactly one month from her due date but I still do not think she will make it that long. I am still picking Thanksgiving as the day.

5 weeks

We are 5 weeks away from Andrea's due date and 3 weeks from the day that I predict the girls are coming. I am still predicting a Thanksgiving arrival. We had several appointments yesterday at Magee and all went well. We started out with the fetal heart monitoring and then a regular Dr. visit. We then went to Magee North to wait for over an hour to get Andrea a H1N1 vaccination. There were well over 100 pregnant women there to get the shots and as far as we could see Andrea had the most impressive belly of them all. Andrea has been feeling much better and has not been sick for over a week. She is having trouble sleeping and gets pooped out pretty quickly. She got out of breath the other day going from the living room to the kitchen to get a drink. The picture above was of the swine flu vaccination event that we went to.

Date night

We decided to go out last night for a hot date and I found myself thinking how things have changed between now and say 10 years ago. It has nothing to do with love. We are more in love now than ever before. Things are just very different. Then- I would start the evening by bringing her flowers. Now- I start the evening by bringing in the mail. Then- we would have started the evening with a few drinks at a local bar. Now- we start by taking a few Tums to prepare for the meal. Then- we would go out to dinner, maybe something in the Strip, Southside or Mt. Washington. Now- we are very predictable, almost always to Domenico's in Cranberry. Then- We would go to a movie or maybe a casino, something fun. Now- last night we went to Costco to look for a robe that would be conducive to breast feeding. Then- out till the wee hours of the morning. Now- home by 7pm. Then- home for wild, crazy, fill up the bath tub with strawberry jello, don't forget the clown wig sex. Now- just home.